The Chinese Basketball Association, the country's governing basketball body will release a unified transfer contract for next season, a step that comes ahead of new and comprehensive transfer regulations.

The watchdog hopes it can make an effective attempt to standardize commercial operations within the domestic basketball market.

The association says that they are taking the interests of both clubs and players into consideration within the new contract, but in the meantime players will gain comparatively more attention.

In future clubs will have to give up their signing priority during transfer negotiations, meaning that the players will have complete freedom to choose for which team they play.

The contract comes in Chinese and English language versions, and will be used both in the CBA league as well as the women's league, WCBA.

(CRI September 2, 2004)